october 2012 - TOJET the Turkish online journal of educational ...

TOJET: The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology – October 2012, volume 11 Issue 4
First, the description of the new course, negotiation practicum is given in detail. Second, the grave problem in
this type of course is described in detail, in which a low level of the students’ reading comprehension skills
reduces the chance of deeper understanding of the given situation reflecting the real-life situation, and, thus,
prevents further development of negotiation skills. And, third, in the conclusion, our optimal solution is given
with the results of our experiment. Also, a further suggestion of research is stated.
2. Negotiation Practicum: A New Communication Course Incorporating Empathy and Negotiation
In this section, a negotiation practicum, a new approach to communication incorporating empathy and
negotiation, is elaborated in detail.
2.1 Definition: Basic Academic Skills
First, it may be helpful to begin the basic academic skills which are fundamental to the negotiation practicum.
The basic academic skills generally include proactive action with stick-to-itiveness, thinking skills such as
problem identifying/solving, and planning a project while taking possible risks in mind, in addition to creativity,
information processing skills (information gathering, sorting, categorizing, prioritizing, logical thinking, and
meta-cognition). Further, the skills also include the cooperative communication skills in order to work in a team
and to comply with the rules and conditions (teamwork, leadership, and compliance).
2.2 Traditionally Speaking: Debate for Ultimate Logical and Critical Thinking
So far, most universities in Japan have incorporated in the curriculum the various basic academic courses to
foster all components of the basic academic skills mentioned above. For example, Kansai University has in the
curriculum the courses for basic study skills including problem identifying, problem solving, note taking, report
writing, presentation, computer literary, and debate. There, debate is placed as one of the most advanced courses
in the basic study skills courses, which incorporate the logical thinking and meta-cognition skills. However, the
debate course does not offer anything to build trust and maintain good relation between students. Furthermore, it
has been evident that emotion or empathy was not in any part of the communication in the debate. Rather, it is
considered as a virtue to hide emotion while debate is in progress. Yet, debate has been considered as the most
advanced academic skill, in which emotion or empathy is considered out of the range of such domain. On the
other hand, however, it is observed that the chances for the students to have debate in the daily life are less than
the chances for them to communicate with others in order to maintain good relationship. In other words, people
communicate daily to have or maintain good relationship. Trust building seems to be the key as well as the
reason to communication.
2.3 Kansai University’s Challenge to Design a New Course
In order to remedy the lack of empathy or emotion in the debate course and to build trust in communication,
Kansai University designed a new course for communication incorporating empathy and negotiation to be
introduced in the curriculum to enhance the series of courses for the basic academic skills.
In the course of such incorporation, trust building through communication is fostered through negotiation
practicum including exercises in groups. In such a course, the simulation experience with role modeling is
crucially employed. The rationale behind this is that the simulation of the real experience will have extremely
high learning outcome, as Edger Dale claims. See Fig. I for Edger Dale’s Cone of Learning.
Fig. 1. Edger Dale’s Cone of Learning (source:
www.cals ncsu.edu/agexed/sae/ppt1/sld012.htm)
Fig. 2. The Framework for Negotiation. From: J.
Tamura,
et. al. (2010). “Visual Explanation: An Introduction to
Negotiation”, Nihon Keizai Shinbun.
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